SamSamantha Lee

All articles by Sam

 

Final Goodbye

The morning I left, I sent a text message to my host mum telling her about the fun I had in Kyoto and Tokyo and how, when I come back, we’ll eat lots of cake and have fun together again. Studying in Japan was a dream come true, and something that used to be a
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Winter Vacation

Leaving Nagasaki was really hard for me. I cried multiple times the night before while doing last minute packing, and couldn’t accept it. Honestly, it was one of the hardest things I had done in quite a long time. I remember I was standing in the middle of my room, holding clothes to be put away,
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Penguins and Cocowalk Mall

Today we went to an aquarium! It was suuuuuper pretty!! We decided to meet at Cocowalk Mall! I took the streetcar there with some friends. Inside, I saw this. I miss bubble tea so much… I used to drink it so much in the states haha! Then we left to the penguin museum! It was
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Classes so far…

Of course, one of the main reasons I came to Japan was also to study! I’m taking 17 credits here, which really doesn’t seem like a lot, but amounts to about 8 classes over here! Most classes meet once a week, for 90 minutes. I knew about this prior to coming here from my Japanese
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Highschoolers

I met with some highschoolers from another prefecture! They came all the way from Nagano!!! So far… I was approached a few days earlier about it, and it seemed like they picked totally random students. I thought they picked quite a few of us but it turned out that wasn’t the case… There were roughly
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Two Weeks!

Today marks two weeks of being in Japan! So far, it’s felt like a dream. Our classes just started last week, and I only have one class a day on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays! Unfortunately, to balance that out I have a full 9am-6pm schedule on Wednesday… there’s just so many good classes that happened
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Fukuoka

Just a little side trip between the time when we arrived in Japan and before we left for Nagasaki! Since quite a bit of us came to Fukuoka early, we got to explore the surrounding area! I woke up and left at 7:30am with some friends and other students from the JASIN program to go sight
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Unzen Trip

Back when we first came, there was a trip planned for the end of orientation to go to Unzen! There was a whole schedule of things to do, but due to rain, we had to switch up the schedule a little bit (which actually ended up being a lot better)! First stop was to the
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I’m in Japan!

Man, where do I even begin? First off, going through JFK security alone for the first time made me pretty nervous. Honestly, I cried saying goodbye to my parents. When I first said goodbye to them after moving into my dorm at New Paltz, everything was fine! I was hit by a little bit of
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Almost There…!

I just came back from a weekend up at New Paltz and… there’s only five days left for me in the states!! It feels extremely surreal, as though I’m not actually about to get on a plane to live and study in a foreign country halfway across the world for four months. It’s a childhood
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